OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)Emerie Karr takes over for Nala Se taking care of the force-sensitive children, with more being captured and brought to Tantiss by bounty hunters, one of them being Cad Bane. Later, the Batch heed Ventress’ warning to get off Pabu before they’re found, but end up being too late, as the remaining clone assassin has tracked them there and leads the Clone Commandos on a strike mission to retrieve Omega. He destroys their ship, the Marauder, leaving Wrecker unconscious and Commandos tear the city apart. Omega decides to give herself up to them so Crosshair can track her back to Tantiss and help free the other clones imprisoned there, but he’s unable to leave a tracker before the assassin leaves.OUR TAKEWe have our last double episode release this week as we kick off the beginning of the end of The Bad Batch. And like most of the last few double episodes, the first is kind of an interlude not involving The Bad Batch which establishes things that will be touched about in the following episode, which DOES involve The Bad Batch. Have I said The Bad Batch enough times yet? Anyway, the first episode shifts focus back to Tantiss and Emerie as she gets a closer look at the child subjects that are being experimented on for their high midi-chlorian levels. We also see how things have darkened quite a bit in civilian life as children who exhibit force powers are sold out to bounty hunters, when only a few years prior they would probably be found by Jedi and trained, but instead they’re watching Cad Bane straight up murdering their parent and being shoved in a crate. For all you can criticize the Jedi Order of the time for, it would definitely be better than being trafficked and made a test subject for the Empire. Emerie, being a clone herself, is now seeing how horrific Hemlock’s work is, so hopefully she’ll play a part in taking him down once Hunter and the rest make it there.As for the second episode, it is here that shit has officially hit the fan. It had to happen sometime around now to lead us into the final stretch of the story. Omega getting captured again had to happen at some point, but the main difference between here and when it happened at the end of last season is that she’s at least going on her own terms and with a plan…kind of. The plan is mostly based on faith, but that’s usually the solution in Star Wars plots so it’s kinda sound in that way. Then there’s the assassin, who is really only interesting in that he might be a somehow alive Tech, with certain hints towards this being that he uses bigger words sometimes, didn’t kill Phee when he took data from her ship, and the fact that he’s the only assassin who has remained masked, which implies they are hiding his identity because it’s someone we would recognize. I mean, even if he were just a random clone, we’d still recognize him anyway, but…you get what I mean. Personally, I could go either way here, since while it would be sad that Tech was brainwashed, it would be nice to have all of the Batch not dead for the finale. And if it’s not, well…then we did some fun theorizing, I guess.But as we gear up for the last handful of episodes, an unfortunate thought creeps over me: They can’t win. Even putting aside that this is only about a year into the Empire’s reign, we’ve been seeing glimpses of how the galaxy has become a darker, more distrustful, and dangerous place. And probably plenty of other words starting with D. Deceitful. Desperate. DEFINITELY dirtier. Alliteration aside, the creation of the Empire has only made things worse, so even if the clones are able to rescue Omega, Emerie, and every other willing clone on Tantiss…what’s next? They can’t go back to Pabu, and unless the priorities of the Emperor change, Omega will always be a target. Not to mention that, as far as we know, none of Clone Force 99 are present during the events of Rebels some years later. Now, that’s MOSTLY due to the fact that their debut episodes weren’t completed before The Clone Wars was canceled, but it also leaves it open to go either way in the end. Are The Bad Batch going to make it out alive when this story is over? Well, we have four episodes to go until we find that out, and there’s bound to be a lot of stuff happening before we get there. And after that, who knows where the heck Star Wars will go in animation, but here’s hoping it WON’T be set between the years of 22 BBY and 0 BBY.